CONSERVATISM FROM A FEMININE POINT OF VIEW

Tag Archives: hydraulic fracturing

Ever heard of the liberal group, Occupy Democrats? They have Facebook page and a website. Of course, they are supporters of the current President of the United States and they are almost always wrong as is our current president. The Facebook site for Occupy Democrats forwarded a stupid little photograph indicating that the current President is so great because of the following:

He got Bin Laden

The price of gas is now $2.75 per gallon

The stock market has tripled in value

He ended two wars

He cut unemployment in half

One-half of the folks who didn’t have health insurance now have it

What a crock? Are these people fools and are the people that believe this fools?

Of course we know that when a Democrat is in the oval office and the price of gas goes down, it is that Democrat president and his wonderful policies that have lowered the price of gas. But if the price goes up when we have a Democrat president, the president really has no control over the price of gas. When a Republican is in the oval office and the price of gas goes down, the president really has no control over the price of gas. But if a Republican is in the oval office and the price of gas goes up, it’s the fault of the Republican president.

The truth of the matter is: private sector technology developed hydraulic fracturing or “fracking.” Fracking took place on private lands and was successful. As such, the United States which is sitting on vast resources of oil and natural gas and fracking and horizontal drilling, we have been able to extract oil and natural gas at a rate that we have never seen before. Thus, the price of gas has gone down and all are seeing reductions in energy costs.

Hey libs, I hate to tell you, but your guy, the one you worship, had nothing to do with this. In case your memory is not serving you correctly, you were against fracking. You want to eliminate the use of fossil fuels and replace these reliable and cost efficient energy sources with unreliable and pricey green energy. Just don’t ever tell me that you are a champion of the middle and lower income classes, otherwise you will get an ear-full from me. Having said all of the above, I think it’s safe to say that this president had nothing to do with the lowering of the price of gas.

He got Bin Laden? I thought it was the Navy Seals who actually captured and killed Osama Bin Laden. The current president did nothing except approve what he had to and watch the events unfold with the Secretary of State. Also, from what I understand, plans were in the works for capturing Bin Laden before the current president took office. It did happen under his watch, though.
The misleading photograph also suggests that the current president cut employment in half. According to gallup.com, anyone who is unemployed and has given up on finding a job, is not counted by the Department of Labor as unemployed. As of earlier this year, as many as 30 million Americans are either out of work or severely unemployed. Also, if you are out of work and perform a minimum of one hour of work in a week and are paid at last $20, you’re not officially counted as unemployed. Those working part time, but desire full time work, are not counted in the 5.6% unemployment. In other words, the 5.6% that sounds great and has the current administration, the mainstream media, and liberals cheering is actually a lie.

The stock market has certainly gone up in the last 6-1/2 years. However, it took major tumbles as a result of the financial crisis of 2008. In an article written by Sean Hyman on moneynews.com in March, 2013, Mr. Nyman indicates that economics is not always a reflection of what the market is doing and here are three main reasons why.

We’re buying companies, not economies. So, if companies manage their debt, cash, resources, etc. better than the overall economy, then stocks can go up while the economy does not.

Corporate earnings are stronger now than in times past, even though the U.S. economy is still weak.

Most companies in the S&amp;P and Dow Jones, etc. have very significant international operations that are affected by those economies as well as our own economy.

While a sluggish economy can certainly pull down the stock market, and has done many times in the past, the stock market and the overall economy are not always in lockstep.

The current president ended two wars? Yes, he did. But he didn’t follow the advice of top military personnel and the Pentagon. And what do we have to show for it? ISIS! Need I say more? Of course, the current President has indicated to us that they are just a JV team eighteen months ago. Has he changed his mind? I think he has, but he doesn’t seem to have the desire to do anything about this most heinous terrorist organization. The Middle East is in the biggest mess it has ever been in, in my lifetime. The Iran Nuclear Deal is a disaster and will certainly propel Iran to get a nuclear weapon. While you may have ended the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, those actions and other actions by you and your administration have made the region a hotbed for terrorist activity.

Last, but not least, the Occupy Democrats photo indicated that one-half of the uninsured are now insured. I’m assuming this means they have health insurance. I know of one person who went through the market place to procure health insurance, and is satisfied. Everybody else, including your author, is paying substantially higher premiums and getting less. This president lied and all his liberal henchmen lied. I thought the average premium was supposed to be cut by approximately $2,500. Well, mine increased by approximately that amount. My portfolio may be a little fatter as a result of the rising stock market, but it’s going to take that increase to make up for the increase in health insurance premiums that I’m having to pay.

So, there you have it. I’ve disputed everything that was outlined on that Occupy Democrats photo. While Occupy Democrats really drives me crazy, more crazy than some of the other liberal groups, I guess I should be thankful for them. They’re almost always wrong and I can rip apart most anything they put out there.

In my Friday, February 6 post, among other things, I outlined how the current administration was screwing not only the state of Alaska, but most all of us by their egregious actions of designating most of the Arctic Nation Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as wilderness, thereby disallowing any oil and natural gas exploration in the area. In addition, the current President limited our presence in the Arctic Ocean on the Outer Continental Shelf to the Chukchik and Beaufort Seas.

Now, enter Russia. According to instituteforenergyresearch.org, Russia is feeling the pain of increased U.S. oil and gas production. Surging U.S. oil production has been the major cause of the 60% drop in oil prices since June 2014. Russia’s budget depends on oil revenues and the loss of income from oil sales in putting the country into a recession. The natural gas production boom in the United States is also causing Russian heartaches, as Russia controls most of European gas sales and is dependent on that revenue. The fact that the United States is building liquefied natural gas export terminals that can provide natural gas to Europe is making Russia uncomfortable. Both the oil boom and the natural gas boom in the United States are due to hydraulic fracturing used in conjunction with directional drilling.

The Institute for Energy Research goes on to indicate that Russia has been funding environmental groups in the United States who are against fossil fuel production and against hydraulic fracturing in order to promote policies against the U.S. production of oil and gas and against their export to foreign countries. In other words, hydraulic fracturing poses a direct threat to Russia because it has the potential of making European countries independent from Russian energy exports. Also in Russia’s crosshairs is the Keystone XL Pipeline, which would supply Gulf Coast U.S. refineries with heavy crude oil from U.S. ally Canada, instead of Venezuela. Furthermore, reduced oil and natural gas production in the U.S. would benefit not only Russia, but it would benefit Venezuela and Iran.

The Environmental Policy Alliance has produced a well-documented report that shows tens of millions of dollars from Russian interests flowing to major environmental lobbying organizations, including the influential Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and the League of Conservation Voters, through an intermediary company in Bermuda.

According to the Washington Times, there have been a number of press stories on Russian support of American environmental groups, including a very detailed description of the money flows, by Lachlan Markay of the Washington Free Beacon.

Both the House and the Senate have now passed a bill to allow the building of the Keystone XL Pipeline and the current President has indicated that he will veto the bill, even though its construction can only have a positive effect on jobs plus being environmentally safe. This is in line with the administration’s own studies. If the pipeline doesn’t get built, heavy crude will still get produced by the Canadians and shipped by rail or truck to the United States, China or both. The cost will be higher and the environmental impact could be greater in a negative way. So, who is really going to benefit from the current President’s veto? The Marxist government of Venezuela and its Cuban, Iranian, and Russian allies.

Does anybody remember the current President promising the Russian President that he would be more flexible after his re-election? Could this be viewed as a request for help in getting re-elected? It looks like the Russians may have done this by facilitating the flow of money to the current President’s environmental allies.

This does not appear to be a conspiracy theory, folks. It sounds all too plausible to me; especially when you factor in the current President’s comments to Putin about being more flexible after his re-election.

The current President does all these bad things to us, the American citizens. None of his policies have worked to the betterment of the United States of America. I often hear conservative talking heads express frustration in what the President is doing. They further question why he would do the things he does when what he does is obviously having a negative impact on the United States of America and the American people.

Let me make it perfectly clear, this President is in office for one purpose, and one purpose only. That is to either destroy the United States of America or to render it a much weaker socialist leaning, Islamic sympathizing nation. The more harm that he can do to the United States of America, the more successful he will be considered by those who are manipulating him even as I write this. After he does his dirty work and leaves office, he will be taken care of and will be taken care of well. And what’s going to happen to the rest of us?

I have liberal friends and we often get into political discussions, although, it’s hard sometimes to have discussions with them. They do get shrill and emotional, especially when it comes to government hand-outs and taxing the rich. “Oh, I couldn’t help but tear up when Obama signed ACA into law; all those poor people who never had health insurance or access to health care will now have it. What a wonderful thing!” I’ve also heard the following, “I have to spend my own money on my classroom and students, and there’s the rich, living the good life. Why can’t they pony up?” When you try to reason with them, they just get more emotional and accuse you of not caring about the poor and about educating our children. When it’s obvious that you’ve won the argument, they shrug and pout.

I’ve always said that to be a liberal, all you have to have is one functioning brain cell. To be a conservative, you definitely need two functioning brain cells and sometime you might need three.

Before ACA, about 85% of Americans had health insurance or some kind of access to health care. While the system certainly wasn’t perfect, most Americans who had health insurance were satisfied with what they had. I know I was. But now, after having my premiums rise by almost 50% and I’m getting less for that exorbitant amount, I’m not satisfied. I know one or two that are, but most are not. The Democrats, who claim they are champions for the middle class, screwed millions of American middle class citizens just so a small minority might be able to obtain health insurance. Why didn’t they concentrate on those who didn’t have health insurance and leave the rest of us alone? If they really cared about the middle class, they wouldn’t have hurt so many of us with this law.

Drilling for oil on private and state lands is at an all-time high. The private sector has implemented a new technology called hydraulic fracturing. As a result, the price of gas is now below $2.00 a gallon in a lot of areas, and the price continues to fall. This is putting additional money into everyone’s pockets and the middle class is getting some much needed relief.
The Democrats/liberals, however, want to get rid of fossil fuels completely. They claim it’s bad for the environment and will exacerbate what they say is the greatest long-term threat to our county, climate change. There are reports and studies that go both ways. Continuing to extract oil while pursuing green energy innovations is important to the well-being of the middle class. But the Democrats claim that we must get off fossil fuels and get off of them now. The current president has just issued a memorandum placing 9.8 million acres of Alaska’s offshore resources off limits indefinitely. Over the weekend, the administration announced it would pursue a wilderness designation for 12.28 million acres, barring drilling in most of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, according to foxnews.com. Again, how is this helping the middle class? It’s not. If the current president and the Democrats are really interested in the prosperity of the middle class, they would take into consider all available reports and research and factor in the wellbeing of the middle class. But they are not doing it. They are not pro-middle class at all. I’ve also read that the caribou like the drilling sites and gather around them. Supposedly it’s warmer. I’ve also read that the caribou population has grown since drilling in Alaska began.

Dr. Thomas Sowell, a long time conservative and a black gentleman said the following: “The real motives of liberals have nothing to do with the welfare of other people. Instead, they have two related goals…to establish themselves as morally and intellectually superior to the rather distasteful population of common people, and to gather as much power as possible to tell those distasteful common people how they must live their lives.”

That’s such a great statement and so true. If you’re one of those who I often call “Obama Zombies,” and you think the current president loves and cares about you so much, you’re wrong. He doesn’t even care about the very poor in our society. He also wants to considerably weaken the United States of America, if not fully destroy it. The only thing that he cares about is getting more and more of you drinking from the government trough. Some of you are going to say, I’m wrong and that he cares so much about everyone and want to give us as much as he can possible give us. Just look at him. Why, he wants to give us two free years of community college education. He wants to give us cell phones. He wants to do all of this for us. He wants to make our lives perfect. Oh how can you put down such a wonderful man?

During his first campaign for President, the current president said that he wanted to fundamentally change America. When I heard this, my blood ran cold. But the Democrats/liberals were slobbering all over themselves. He continually harped on change throughout his campaign and, of course, a majority of the voters bought into his rhetoric, hook, line, and sinker. I, on the other hand, and a lot of conservatives were scared, really scared. Just what was this man going to change? He’s well into changing the very fabric that this nation was founded on. He’s going against the constitution, he’s anointed himself dictator, and he’s ignoring the will of the people, claiming that because so many voters stayed home and didn’t vote on November 4, 2014, that election somehow doesn’t matter.

The middle class is shrinking and enduring many hardships. The United States of America is more vulnerable to further attacks like the one on 9/11/2001. Obamacare is hurting so many more Americans than it has helped and so many Americans are losing their jobs due to high corporate taxes and burdensome regulations. And who do I blame for this, the Democrats, including the current president.

By now we’ve heard a plethora of summaries and opinions about Monday’s State of the Union address by the current President of the United States. And here’s another one. While most of the following may be a re-hash of what you’ve already heard, I do have a few insights that are my own, or either I haven’t heard anyone else say these things.

As normal for any Democrat administration, increasing entitlements and government hand-outs is always proposed, with a tax increase for the rich in order to pay for these new “freebies.” New entitlements proposed in the speech include the following:

• First two years of community college tuition for free if the student meets certain requirements.
• A $3,000 child care tax credit.
• Seven days of sick leave for all American workers.

While these proposals may sound good, bottom line, they are simply mechanisms by which to grow the government and increase the number of people feeding at the government trough. While I’m certainly a believer in safety nets, we just can’t keep giving stuff away. Somebody’s got to pay for it and that somebody is always “the rich.” Your typical liberal will always say, go after the wealthy, they can afford it. And the wealthy can, but can the middle class afford it? It’s ultimately going to be the middle class that gets hurt. When Mr. Rich Man or Ms. Rich Woman finds themselves having to pay more in taxes, that money is going to the government rather than into the private sector, particularly to small businesses. We’d be much better off with that money going into the private sector, growing the economy. When the private sector prospers, more money generally goes to the government, thereby increasing revenue. This is one of those issues that takes two brain cells to understand and liberals either don’t understand it or don’t want to understand it. I could discuss each of the three bulleted points in depth, but that will be left for another blog post.

The current president also touted the U.S. economy, indicating that its growing and creating jobs at the fastest rate since 1999. Yes, there is some optimism out there due to falling gas prices. More Americans have a little extra money in their pockets. However, when you dig deeper, you find a very sluggish economy. In 2009, there were 33 million people on food stamps, now; 46.5 million people are receiving food stamps. The number of people on some sort of government welfare program has doubled since the current president has taken office. Yes, the employment rate is down, but that doesn’t account for the millions of people who have dropped out of the work force entirely. Right now, there are approximately 92 million people not working.

Of course, the current president is going to boast about healthcare, stating that there are so many more Americans insured today than there were a year ago. However, insurance premiums have increased for most of us and the healthcare we’re getting is not as good as most of us had. When the extra money in the pockets of the middle class due to falling gas prices disappears due to the increase in health insurance premiums, how optimistic are folks going to be? Also, average income has dropped steadily since 2009.

The economy is still in dire straits and can only improve with a strong private sector, something this president and the liberals are fighting and will continue fighting tooth and nail.

Now for my favorite, falling energy prices. In his speech, the president took credit for falling gas prices. Once again, the falling gas prices are due to increased exploration on state and private lands and a little innovation called hydraulic fracturing or more commonly known as fracking. And you know something; liberals are against fracking and increased oil exploration. They hate it and want to further regulate it. In fact, the current administration is planning on implementing additional regulations for oil exploration on state and federal lands. Now what’s this going to result in? If you said gasoline prices increasing, you’re right. I suspect, though, that these regulations will be timed so that the effects will be felt sometime around the 2016 presidential election. If a Republican wins the Whitehouse, he or she and the rest of the Republicans will be blamed for increases in the price of gas. If a Democrat wins the Whitehouse, it will be business as usual. Democrats don’t care about anything except controlling as many aspects of our lives as possible. They’ll somehow blame everything on the Republicans with the mainstream media getting on board with them. Like I’ve said before, facts don’t matter to Democrats.

With respect to foreign policy, remember Baghdad Bob? He was the Iraqi official that kept telling his people that Iraq was winning the war with the allied forces, including the United States, while we were continually bombing them. He became somewhat of a comical character. While this president was discussing foreign policy in his State of the Union address, I couldn’t help think about Baghdad Bob. The world is a dangerous place. ISIS or ISIL is getting stronger and continues to conquer, torture, and kill anyone they don’t like. In fact, ISIL controls more territory in Syria than it did when U.S. airstrikes began six months ago. The threat that there will be another attack on U.S. soil is increasing every day. Four months ago, this president announced that the Arab country of Yemen was stable and served as a model for Middle Eastern states. However, the day of the State of the Union address, Shiite Houthi rebels overtook the presidential palace in Yemen’s capital city of Sanaa, making what a government minister called, “the completion of a coup,” according to CNN.com.

Of course, we all know that the president did not mention the words, Al Qaeda, in his speech and refuses to use the phrase, “Islamic Terrorism.” The primary responsibility of the President of the United States is to keep this country and its people safe from our enemies around the globe. But this president doesn’t seem engaged at all in foreign policy. When the Paris terrorist attacks took place, this president was off touting his great economic policies and didn’t see the need to attend the “we stand with the French” rally that was attended by numerous heads of state from all over the planet, including our allies. Again, this president is not engaged in foreign policy and seems to dismiss the fact that the world is a dangerous place due to the aggressiveness of Islamic terrorism.

And if the above weren’t enough, the current administration is talking with Iran about Iran’s nuclear program in spite of a number of high level democrats who are against negotiations with Iran. Congressional leaders in both chambers are considering a proposal to increase sanctions while international negotiators try to reach an agreement. The president has indicated that he will veto any bill that comes to his desk to increase sanctions on Iran because he feels that such sanctions, which would go into effect June 30, if agreements are not reached, would derail any talks about Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

The most ridiculous statement made by the current president in the State of the Union is that climate change is the biggest threat to our future. I almost choked on that one. The president went on to state that records show 2014 was the warmest year on record. Fourteen of the fifteen warmest years on record have fallen during the first fifteen years of this century. According to James Delingpole, author of The Little Green Book of Eco-Facism, if you were to take the year 1850 as a starting point, we have experienced about 0.8 degrees Celsius of “global warming.” But if you used a 1,000 year time scale, you’d find that the world’s temperatures had been gently cooling since their high point in the Medieval Warming Period. So, Mr. Delingpole opines that global warming may be happening or it may not be happening. Either way, it doesn’t matter because nothing that climate has been doing in our lifetime is in any way more dramatic than anything it has been doing in the last 10,000 or so years. This says to me that climate change is not really significant and certainly not caused by industrial nations such as the United States.

While I could certainly write a lot more, I’m not because this post may be a little too long to keep your attention. It would be my hope that the above is one of the better analyses of the 2015 State of the Union address, one that you can refer to for reference.

In 2001, President George W. Bush signed the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act, the largest tax relief package in a generation. In 2003, President Bush proposed and signed the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act. Among other things, the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act reduced tax rates for every American who paid income taxes. It also created a new 10 percent tax bracket. Of course we all know that the Democrats called this tax cuts for the rich, when in effect everyone who paid income taxes received a tax cut. Those not paying income tax would not obviously receive a cut.

Despite being in a recession, due to the .com bust, and 9/11, the economy returned to growth in the fourth quarter of 2001 and continued to grow for twenty-four consecutive quarters. The economy grew at a rapid pace of 7.5 percent above inflation during the third quarter of 2003, the highest since 1984. The President’s tax relief also reduced the marginal effective rate on new investment, which encourages additional investment and, in the long-run, higher wages for workers.

The President’s tax relief was followed by increases in tax revenue. From 2005 to 2007, tax revenues grew faster than the economy. The ratio of receipts to GDP rose to 18.8 percent in 2007, above the 40-year average. Between 2004 and 2006, capital gains realizations grew by approximately 60%. Growth in corporate income tax receipts was strong in President Bush’s second term, nearly doubling between 2004 and 2007. With nearly all of the tax relief provisions fully in effect, the President’s tax relief reduced the share of taxes paid by the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers from 3.9 percent in 2000 to 3.1 percent in 2005. The share of taxes paid by the top 10 percent rose from 46.0 percent to 46.4 percent.

President Bush’s first budget in 2001 warned that “financial trouble of large GSEs (government sponsored enterprises) could cause strong repercussions in the financial markets.” In 2003, the Bush administration began calling for a new GSE regulator. Despite resistance from Congress, President Bush continued to call for GSE reform until Congress finally acted in 2008 to provide the additional oversight the President requested five years earlier. Unfortunately the reform came too late to prevent systemic consequences.

There you have it folks, during the George W. Bush presidency, our economy was strong, wealth was created and this nation prospered. While President Bush was aware that the financially troubled GSEs (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) would result in dire consequences, he was unable to get additional oversight for these entities until 2008 when “all hell broke loose.”

Yet, we’ve had to listen to six years of the current president blaming George Bush for a devastated economy that was the result of his “tax cuts for the rich.” I’ve been tired of this president’s rhetoric and lies since day one of his presidency.

We did have a slightly less than six year period of economic growth and prosperity when Bill Clinton was president, a period from approximately 1994 to 2000. This period of grown ended when Federal Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered the breakup of Microsoft into two companies, citing that the company was “untrustworthy.” I remember that day well. I was in between careers, studying computer programming. I was listening to the radio, yes, Rush Limbaugh. During his program that day, he was continually reporting on the falling Dow Jones. This ushered in the recession of 2000 that lasted approximately one year.

What spurred the period of prosperity during the Clinton years? The entrepreneurs of the technological revolution were responsible for this era of economic growth. President Clinton, to his credit, backed away and let it happen. Think about the way you were doing things in 1992 and think about the way you are doing things now. Think about your office environment in 1992 and think about your office environment now. Many of you are now home workers. In 1992, none of us could even imagine how that would work. The term, Internet, didn’t exist. I guess Al Gore was still working on it in his basement. We had to rely on newspapers and TV for our news, although, CNN was broadcasting 24/7. Cell phones were just beginning to become affordable for the middle class. By 1999, our way of life had totally changed and it’s continued to rapidly change since that time, although, I still have some friends who are stuck in the 1980s and will probably continue to be stuck there for the rest of their lives.

What spurred the period of prosperity during the Bush years? More of the same. While President Bush signed into law the measures I cited in the first paragraph, these measures didn’t create the prosperity. Instead, they widened the road to accommodate more innovation. While most of us had cell phones in 2000, all we could do was call someone on them. By 2008, smart phones had been introduced where we could send and receive email, text messages, and download numerous applications to satisfy whatever needs we had. While widespread use of tablet PCs didn’t begin until around 2010/2011, innovation was occurring behind the scenes. Also, everyone was making the transition from bulky desktop computer systems to laptops. Laptops became smaller, lighter, more powerful, and cheaper. Now, almost everyone has a laptop as their main device.

The economy does seem to be turning the corner and we all are hoping that it does. Gasoline prices are falling due mostly to the innovation of hydraulic fracturing, an innovation that most liberals despise and want to end. Also, oil exploration has increased in recent years on state and private lands. According to americanenergyalliance.org, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management issued fewer leases in fiscal year 2014 than in any year since 1988 (though they leased slightly more acres than were leased in 2013). Also, according to americanenergyalliance.org, drilling permits languished in regulatory morass, resulting in production on federal lands becoming stagnant or declining. On state and private lands, oil production has surged to a 25 year high, making the U.S. the largest combined oil and gas producer in the world.

Yes, the current president’s administration has mostly avoided imposing new burdens on oil and gas development on state and private lands, much to the chagrin of this president’s constituency. However, according to americanenergyalliance.org, that could soon change. The BLM is preparing first-ever federal regulations for hydraulic fracturing and the EPA is gearing up to issue methane regulations for natural gas production.

Could this energy boom grind to a halt if burdensome regulations are placed on oil exploration on state and private lands? Absolutely! When will the burdensome regulations start having their effect? Possibly right after a Republican assumes the Presidency in January 2017? Gas prices could rise and energy bills could increase. And there sits the mainstream media waiting to pounce on the new Republican president. But wait, we have a Republican majority in Congress, surely they will stop this. While I’m a committed Republican, I’ll be the first to admit that there are many wimps and rhinos out there who just might be pressured into backing some regulations on oil exploration on state and private lands. And even if they don’t, this president has a phone and a pen; he’ll impose them through executive orders.

If a Republican is elected president in 2016, will that president have the “nads” to go through and reverse those executive orders? I don’t know. If he or she does, he’ll have the mainstream media and the liberals on his tail broadcasting to everyone that the Republicans want us to have dirty air to breath and dirty water to drink. While certain media outlets will most definitely attempt to tell the truth, these outlets will be called liars and worse. If he or she leaves them in place, the energy boom will become an energy bust and we know who will get the blame.

Am I depressed about what I just wrote? A little. But I’m still keeping the faith. Despite the current president continually trashing Republicans in almost every speech he makes, and a mainstream media that is in the tank for the left, Republicans managed to win majorities in the House and Senate in November. We’ve won elections and I pray we will continue to win elections even though this president is doing everything he possibly can to increase the number of Democrat voters while he’s still in office.

While this post is full of information that I hope all of you will save and use when necessary, its purpose is to indicate that it is not the government that creates wealth and prosperity, it’s the entrepreneurs out there with their undying entrepreneurial spirit that have made this nation the wealthiest and most prosperous on the planet. Yes, we have government leaders that try to break that spirit and the current president has done just that, but when the going gets rough, these individuals have kept on going. That’s the United States of America.